Category Archives: Biomass

When wood once again becomes our main energy source, how long will it last?

Posted on January 23, 2020 by

Preface. Since we’re going back to wood as our main energy and infrastructure source after fossil fuels deplete, I thought it would be interesting to try to get an idea of how wood stacks up against other energy resources (below).   … Continue reading →

Posted in Nate Hagens, Where to Be or Not to Be, Wood | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Generating electricity with biomass at utility-scale in California limited to direct combustion in small 50 MW plants

Posted on January 20, 2020 by

Preface. It’s obviously much easier and more energy efficient to set logs on fire for heat and electricity than to turn them into ethanol.   Burning biomass can’t do much to solve our energy crisis.  To produce just 10% of … Continue reading →

Posted in Biomass, Electric Grid | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Steam powered farm tractors

Posted on January 17, 2020 by

Preface. Steam engines weren’t very efficient, 10 to 20% at best, which is why they went away beginning around 1920 when oil-powered engines came along.  At the very best steam engines for transportation reached 10 to 20% efficiency. They were … Continue reading →

Posted in Biomass-powered Steam Engines | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Charcoal for the high heat needed in manufacturing after peak oil

Posted on January 11, 2020 by

Preface. De Decker (2011) writes: “A large share of energy consumed worldwide is by heat. Cooking, space heating and water heating dominate domestic energy consumption. In the UK, these activities account for 85% of domestic energy use, in Europe for … Continue reading →

Posted in Industrial Heat, Peak Biofuels, Wood | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Wood, the fuel of preindustrial societies, is half of EU renewable energy

Posted on October 19, 2019 by

Preface: By far the largest so-called renewable fuel used in Europe is wood. In its various forms, from sticks to pellets to sawdust, wood (or to use its fashionable name, biomass) accounts for about half of Europe’s renewable-energy consumption. Although … Continue reading →

Posted in Wood | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

European Power plants are burning American forests

Posted on July 17, 2019 by

Preface.   Incredibly, this article doesn’t address the fact that after you cut down a forest and convert the wood into pellets destined to be burned in European furnaces for “clean energy”, the next forest won’t grow back with nearly as … Continue reading →

Posted in CO2 and Methane, Deforestation, Wood | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Book review of Underbug: an obsessive tale of termites and technology

Posted on February 23, 2019 by

Preface.  I read this book mainly to find out where “grassoline” stood. Scientists thought 10 years ago that we could recreate the termite biota system of digesting biomass to create biofuels.  But this appears to be far in the future … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Wood | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Book review of Underbug: an obsessive tale of termites and technology

60 minutes promotes biomass scam

Posted on January 11, 2019 by

Preface. Hey 60 minutes, do some fact checking first. Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Podcasts: Practical Prepping, KunstlerCast 253, KunstlerCast278, … Continue reading →

Posted in Biomass, Far Out | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Book: John Perlin’s “A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization”

Posted on October 18, 2018 by

Preface.  This contains excerpts from John Perlin’s “A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization”. It’s one of my favorite books about natural resources, exploring the role wood has played in the rise and fall of civilizations since they … Continue reading →

Posted in Collapse of Civilizations, Collapsed, Deforestation, Life Before Oil, Limits To Growth, Peak Resources, Soil, Wood | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Power density of biomass, wind, & solar take too much land to replace fossil fuels

Posted on May 7, 2018 by

Volumetric versus specific energy density for selected energy carriers. Source: Palmer, G. 2020. Energy storage & civilization: a systems approach. Springer. Preface. Vaclav Smil writes “The fact that wind, solar, and biomass have incredibly low energy density per square meter … Continue reading →

Posted in Alternative Energy, Biomass, Coal, Hydropower, Natural Gas, Oil | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments